Just heard this on the car radio:

P&O FERRIES has decided to scrap its unprofitable Portsmouth-Bilbao route at the end of September this year.

Jim

I am not surprised - they wanted nearly £1200 for a van plus two crossing when I checked recently so I doubt they were getting much/any business.
I used to like the Spanish company - can't just remember the name - but basically a freight ship with few frills but very cheap. They packed in few years ago.

I understand that Brittany Ferries are going to be running a new service this year from Portsmouth to Santander using a new boat the MV Cap Finistére .

http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/fleet/cap-finistere

Well spotted. And not bad - circa £700 return in March

We used the Brittainy ferry from Portsmouth to Santander last year to take our furniture over its a verry comfortable ferry.
They alternate the ferry between Portsmouth & Plymouth to Santander.

Leonardo

Do you have a link for that?

We have been trying to decide whether to put our house up for sale.

This may actually be the decider as Bilbao- Portsmouth on the Pride of Bilbao is by far our preferred route.

what has happened, about 10 years ago the price was abou £90 what the *** has happened.?

The cheapest you can get now with a car (one way) is £199. This includes a cabin.

But that's OK if you want to stay for five months like we did last year.

Here you go

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...re/8461624.stm

For the past few years Brittany and P&O have very obviously been carving routes up between them rather than compete with each other, and fixing their prices to suit.
I would say this is probably just one more example.

Not sure if that stands scrutiny DD. My guess about why this route is closing is that Brittney Ferries started up a competing Portsmouth-Santander run a year or two ago and these guys just can't take the loss of business. Since Bilbao is only just "down the road" from Santander, it probably doesn't matter much which port you end up in. Plus P & O run all year - whether they have the passengers to fill the boat, which can't help their bottom line.
Although you're right - there doesn't seem to be much in the way of competition. Oddly, they both charge roughly the same fare and the idea of discounts - or lower prices for booking early (a la airlines) seems a completely alien concept to either of them, so no chance of a price war

Yes,they've had a price fix between for a long time on other routes ,even though they often attempted to make the prices appear structured in different ways, anyone doing their sums could work out that they were virtually identical in most cases.
After a while running side by side at identical prices,they then normally split the routes between themselves.

We've been doing the run Portsmouth to Bilbao using P&O for about 5 years. Typically we found P&O about £40 to £50 cheaper each way, making the return trip twice a year, so thats likely to add up to close on £200 a year. Possibly more if Brittany take the opportunity to increase prices.

So looks as if our last cost effective return trip via P&O may be this Spring.

Jim

I prefer the P&O ship to Brittany Ferries ship but my gripe with P&O is that the crossing takes about another 10 hours. And returning to Spain is a two night trip.

Does Brittany ferries say they will run all year now alternating between Portsmouth and Plymouth? We returned to the UK early December and they do not have sailings to Portsmouth from early October to late March. As we stay about 20 miles from Portsmouth it was a nuisance having to sail to Plymouth.